I am a girl, so I never looked at my dad's body and thought that's what I need to look like.

How can any person justify an aesthetic that reduces a woman or child to an emaciated skeleton? Is it art? Surely fashion's aesthetic should enhance and beautify the human form, not destroy it.

I know what I want, I know where I'm going and I'm happy with what I am.

I remember trying to work out like crazy to get rid of all of my womanly features because I thought they made me fat.

I felt ugly, chubby, and stupid until I talked to my mom about it and she had me do a very good exercise that I recommend to every girl. She had me take a piece of paper and write down everything I liked and everything that I didn't like about my body and my life. By the end of the exercise, I realized that I had so many more things in my likes column. It showed me that while there are a few things in my dislikes column, I was giving ALL my attention to those few things!

I know every girl has her own form of beauty, its just a matter of discovering it and celebrating it.

From a young age, my parents always told me and my sister how important it was as a girl to be more than just a pretty face and I think we've carried that message through out our lives.